A civil rights organization founded by W. E. B. DuBois in 1905, the Niagara Movement sought to provide a voice for militant action against racial discrimination in the United States. It suffered due to organizational weakness, the opposition of other African-American leaders, and the opposition of whites and disbanded by 1911. The Niagara Movement’s legacy of black militancy lived on in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
DuBois called the first convention at Niagara Falls, Ontario, in the hope of creating a militant voice that would challenge the prevailing racial system in the United States. DuBois and the other founding members disagreed with the teachings of Booker T. Washington, who at the time was the best-recognized leader among African Americans. Repudiating Washington, DuBois and the others believed that African Americans should fight for immediate political and civil rights. Rejecting Washington’s argument that white Americans would accept African Americans once they proved themselves to be upstanding and useful citizens through hard work, DuBois and the others proclaimed that only through immediate and militant action could the African Americans force white Americans to change.
The Declaration of Principles written after the first convention indicated the radical protest that the founders supported. The principles demanded immediate suffrage and civil rights. It protested the “peonage and virtual slavery” that existed in the South. The principles included complaints against the policies of employers in using African-American workers against white workers and against labor union discrimination. They demanded free and compulsory education through high school and the end of discrimination in colleges and trade schools. The Niagara group attacked segregation in churches and streetcars. To right these wrongs, the Niagara Movement urged national education and legislation to secure enforcement of the constitutional amendments guaranteeing equal rights.
The movement never became the force its founders envisioned. Although it gained members in its first two years, it did not establish itself financially and never effectively found its voice. This was due to a number of reasons. First, Booker T. Washington actively discouraged white and conservative African-American donors from supporting the Niagara Movement. Second, its militant tactics repelled some supporters and it faced a severe backlash from its critics. Third, DuBois and the others never made the movement into a mass organization. It remained an organization of the educated elite. Fourth, the leadership continually fought over tactics.
By 1911, the Niagara Movement had collapsed beneath all these pressures. Its legacy lived on in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. DuBois and several other Niagara leaders helped found the NAACP and brought to it a dedication to militant, direct agitation in the pursuit of civil rights.
See also race and racial conflict.
—Michael Hartman
World History
